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Tuesday, 19 January 2016

Motivation: As the development of the Internet of Things (IoT)
is taking up speed, connected devices produce staggering amounts of data.
Estimates by Cisco say that by 2020, there will be 7 times more connected
things than people – devices which will produce hundreds of zettabytes of data
every year. Moreover, according to IBM, data volumes will soon double every 12
hours, not just every 12 months. Then, it is neither possible to store all the
data nor to transmit it all for centralized processing and optimization.
Therefore, we expect a new, complementary big data paradigm to emerge. This
will involve decentralized approaches, data aggregation, and "optimal
forgetting" of data, also for reasons of costs, scalability, and security.

As the connectivity in today's
techno-socio-economic systems increases steeply, systemic complexity does so,
too. Taken together, this will exclude a centralized optimization of
societal-scale systems, particularly due to the NP-hardness of some
optimization problems and the limitations of predictability and calibration
(such as over-fitting problems and parameter sensitivity). However, highly
performing solutions can often be realized in real-time by means of flexible
and adaptive, decentralized heuristics. These specify self-organizing systems.
All that matters to reach a desired systemic outcome efficiently is a suitable
choice of the interactions between the system components. The scientific
disciplines of mechanism design and complexity science serve to identify these
interactions.

Decentralized solutions also leave space for
diversity in the locally applied goal functions. This allows for innovation and
solutions that fit the respective context and local culture best. Diversity is
also often favourable for innovation rates, for societal resilience to
disruptive events, and for collective intelligence. For these and further
reasons, decentralized and pluralistic systems can be superior to systems
lacking diversity. (Note that, in biological systems, the value of diversity is
already recognized since a long time.)

Managing the future data deluge wisely is currently
one of the biggest challenges facing policy, industry and civil society. The
project proposed here will study how big data from connected devices can be
used to build a so-called Planetary Nervous System. We envision a transparent,
open-access information system, which can support crowd-sourced real-time
measurements of the world. A system like this could revolutionise many sectors,
from urban planning and traffic control to the early detection of epidemics.
Compatible with IBM's IoT paradigm of "device democracy", we propose
a citizen-run participatory platform. The platform aims to have extensive
features to protect user privacy and create big data as a public good. The goal
is to build a participatory data ecosystem complementing classical big data approaches
and to offer opportunities for everyone: science, business, politics, and the
citizens.

Historical development and state
of the art: In 1943, IBM chief Watson expected that there is a world market for
maybe 5 computers. However, everything changed when computers were connected
with each other. ARPANET networked a couple of military computers to make the
USA less vulnerable to nuclear attacks, using the principle of
decentralization. Soon after this, the Internet became accessible for everyone,
and with the invention of the http protocol, Tim-Berners Lee made it possible
to easily connect webpages with each other. This created the World Wide Web
(WWW) and made it useful for non-experts, which was the precondition for the
emergence of a multi-billion-dollar digital market. With social media, the
Internet reached out for people, who became nodes of a global information
processing system. Now, things are connected to the Internet too, creating the
Internet of Everything. It is predicted that, by 2025, 150 billion sensors will
be wirelessly connected to the Internet (of Things), which makes it possible to
give objects senses and, together with actuators and machine learning software,
even a certain level of artificial intelligence (AI).

This allows one to create a
digital nervous system on a planetary scale, i.e. a global
Internet-of-Things-based information system with an intelligent, learning
software layer on top. The question is how to design and operate such a system
to support a thriving economy and society. Answering this question requires not
only knowledge from computer science and electrical engineering, but also
knowledge from the social sciences and complexity science, to ensure a systemic
view. Here, we propose the Nervousnet project to develop such an integrated
solution.

Project overview: Unlike most Internet of Things
initiatives spearheaded by big IT companies or public institutions, Nervousnet
shall be run as a 'Citizen Web', built and managed by its users. Inspired by
Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap, people, companies and devices will be able to
interact with Nervousnet in 3 ways: by contributing data; by analysing the
crowd-sourced datasets; and by sharing code and ideas. Anyone should be able to
create data-driven services and products using a generic programming interface.
The aim is to yield societal benefits, business opportunities and jobs.

Today, there are several Internet of Things platforms and
data science projects that share Nervousnet’s vision, but none has its scope.

Moreover, Nervousnet wants to
enable real-time measurement and feedback to support self-organising systems.
For example, self-controlled traffic lights responding to local pedestrian and
vehicle flows can reduce urban congestion and outperform today's systems based
on centralised control. The ultimate challenge will be to digitally enable
collective intelligence. Digital assistants can help bring knowledge, ideas and
resources together. A pluralistic approach to information processing is
important to view complex problems from varied perspectives and also to
anticipate and assess rare and extreme events that are costly for society –
such as natural disasters, blackouts or financial meltdowns.

Nervousnet uses distributed data
storage and distributed control, so that it is more robust to attacks and
centralized manipulation attempts, easy to scale up, and tolerant to faults.
Nervousnet's approach is compatible with the principles of informational
self-determination and, according to our judgment, also with the new EU Data
Protection Directive.

Attracting users is a further
challenge, which will be addressed by 'gamification' and a micro-payment system
to reward and incentivise digital co-creation. As critics may worry about the
responsible use of bottom-up systems, Nervousnet also aims to integrate
reputation systems, qualification mechanisms, and self-governance by community
moderators ("social technologies").

In the long run, we expect that
measurements tailored to specific purposes, together with crowd-sourced data
generation, curation and analysis may outperform the big data analytics
approach currently in vogue. Just as the open standards of the World Wide Web
created unprecedented opportunities and a multi-billion-dollar economy, the
right framework for the 'Internet of Things' and digital society could foster
an age of prosperity.

Project components: To provide the full perspective
of the project, which may be realized long-term with complementary resources,we give an overview of the main envisaged platform components and
functionalities in the following.

Figure: Schematic illustration of
some core components of the Nervousnet concept.

In the long run, the Nervousnet
platform (to run on several mobile platforms such as iOS and Android, but
also on embedded devices such as Arduino) will comprise a considerable number
of functional elements:

Real-time measurement: The Nervousnet platform opens up
various sensors for real-time measurement of the world around us (status:
done). This will enable the measurement of "externalities" such as
social or environmental impacts of interactions between systems and system
components (e.g. of noise or other emissions). We plan to make it easy to add
further, external sensors, for example, for smart home applications, using
Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms. [Has already been internally tested, needs
to become easy to configure and use]

Anonymization: Data streams are not linked to
personal or smartphone identifiers, but to a randomized identifier that can be
specified to change over time. [Done]

Privacy: The GPS sensor is not made
accessible or turned off by default. The smartphone's microphone is not made
accessible as a microphone. Its signal is turned into a virtual noise sensor by
means of a digital filter. A similar strategy is applied to other sensitive
sensors. [Implemented and on-going, see also "Data aggregation"]

Informational self-determination: Users can easily turn data
collection through the Nervousnet platform on or off and regulate the frequency
of data collection. Furthermore, they can determine separately for each virtual
sensor, whether data will be logged only locally for one's own use (e.g. in
smart home applications) or shared with others. [Implemented]

Decentralized data storage and
processing: Nervousnet is based on distributed storage to make the platform
resilient to attacks and centralized manipulation attempts, easy to scale up,
and tolerant to faults. User groups can decide to join the Nervousnet community
and share their data with it or decide to run their own data server.
[Functional, under further development]

Forgetting: Most of the measurement data are
needed for real-time feedback (as they are needed to enable self-organizing
systems).Users will be able to specify a time period after which data
will be non-decryptable or automatically deleted (at latest). On top of this,
Nervousnet aims to determine strategies for optimal forgetting (the usefulness
of most data decays quickly with time). [To be implemented]

Data aggregation ("global
analytics engine"): Before their deletion, data may be aggregated to provide information
such as minimum and maximum values, averages, standard deviations, or other
relevant statistical quantities to provide information at various levels of
granularity without revealing personal data. This is being done by a
"global analytics engine". The particular novelty of our approach is
that it can aggregate data in a fully decentralized fashion, even when input
data changes over time [Feasibility has been successfully tested; first version
available soon]

Local analytics engine: Data logged locally can be
accessed for providing data-driven services to Nervousnet users. The data are
managed and accessed transparently via a high-level application programming
interface that hides low-level technical details. [First version exists, will
be further extended]

Pluralistic data processing: Users can also process a certain
volume of shared Nervousnet data for free for own applications, such as
services or games. They can run their own data aggregation and visualization
algorithms, such that their view of the world is not determined by others, but
self-determined. [Must be made user-friendly.]

Data visualization: The Nervousnet platform will
offer various possibilities to visualize data. For this, we intend to link the
platform with an open source visualization platform that runs on various
devices, including smartphones, such as the D3 JavaScript platform.
[Feasibility has been tested; to be developed further]

Personal data store: Sensitive personal data is only
stored locally on the own smartphone. A personal data store shall make it
simple to administer the data according to various categories and determine
whom to give access to what kind of data for what kind of purpose and period of
time (e.g. for use by a bank or other company). We might integrate OpenPDS
developed at the MIT or other open-source software such as digitalID.
Transactions may be supported by a AI-based digital agent that learns the user
preferences locally on the smartphone. [To be done.]

Personalized services: The personalization of services
will be enabled by means of a matching principle. The offers by a provider of
data, services or products can be customized using data from the personal data
store, without revealing the identity of the customer or user (if they don't
want to). [To be done.]

Social technologies: The Nervousnet platform will be
equipped with social mechanisms (such as communication or social networking) in
order to create social opportunities. This will consider knowledge from game
theory, mechanism design, and complexity science such that the implemented
mechanisms support coordination, cooperation, and responsible use. [To be
done.]

Digital assistants: AI,machine learning and
other approaches (such as recommendations and best practices from experts and
users) will be employed to offer assistance to users. This will be done in a
distributed way (e.g. on the user's smartphone) and only if explicitly agreed
by the respective user. [To be done.]

Creating a Participatory
Information and Innovation Ecosystem Open source and open innovation: Most computer code of the
Nervousnet platform (not necessarily though the code of potentially commercial
apps running on top of it) is made open source to allow experts to check its
security and functionality. This creates trust and also participatory
opportunities to contribute to the further development of the platform and its
functionality. [This is our policy; a dual licensing model is being considered]

Crowd-sourcing and participatory
opportunities: Users can contribute data, analyse the crowd-sourced data, contribute,
use and modify code (e.g. new measurement methods, "virtual
sensors"), or release apps using Nervousnet data. Therefore, anyone can
create data-driven services and products using a generic programming interface.
[Must be made user-friendly]

Reputation and incentive systems: In order to reward users for
contributions (for data, code, and apps, or also for social, healthy or
environmentally friendly behaviour...) and to assess the quality of data and
services, multi-dimensional reputation and incentive systems will be designed
and developed for the Nervousnet platform to provide a differentiated, context-
and community-specific feedback. The incentive system will also be used to
promote responsible use of the Nervousnet platform. [To be done.]

Collective intelligence and
digital democracy: It is also planned to develop an online deliberation platform, which
allows one to collect and integrate the knowledge and ideas of many people in
order to support better solutions to problems that need to be solved. [To be
done.]

Citizen and Business Engagement: One goal of the project is to
reach citizen engagement with digital technologies, as this is important for the
digital transformation of our society to succeed. For this, participatory
opportunities and open innovation are as important as incentive systems and gamification
(and a collaboration with companies and public media).

Treasure Hunt: This app allows to localize
"Treasures" equipped with Bluetooth beacons, turning the smartphone
into a kind of radar system measuring proximity. [App exists, must be
integrated into the Nervousnet platform]

Competition Game: This app allows one to perform
group competitions using the output of selected virtual sensors (measurement of
acceleration, noise or distance). For example, one could perform a virtual arm
wrestling or a biking competition. [App exists, must be integrated into the
Nervousnet platform]

Swarmpulse: This app allows one to perform
geo-located measurements of light or noise intensities and create corresponding
maps. It is also possible to leave geo-located text messages, which could be
links to photos or movies, thereby allowing people to map the environment
around them. [To be done.]

Disaster response and societal
resilience: This app should provide functionality in case the mobile phone network
is broken down, offering information exchange via ad hoc network protocols such
as the one used by "firechat". The app should also offer simple local
coordination of supply and demand between peers – something like a sharing
economy functionality for disasters. [To be done.]

Early warning system: Advance detection of impending
risks with predictive analytics and methods from complexity and network
science. [To be done.]

Usefulness for policy
decision-making: Nervousnet and apps running on top of it (particularly Swarmpulse) will
be able to engage with citizens and to collect data on the environment
(allowing one to generate, for example, noise maps, maps of plant and animal
species, etc.).

Monday, 11 January 2016

In Europe, you triggered the discussion about the Citizen Score, which has
also been characterized as data dictatorship.[1]
How did we get to the point that different companies and countries are now
building information systems for behavioral and social control?

The world faces a series of
global problems that are so severe that there is little interest to discuss
them in public.

So far, the financial, economic and debt crisis has not
anywhere been comprehensively solved. There are still major economic risks.
Peace is unstable, and we are witnessing the spread of terrorism and
cybercrime. The digital revolution will destroy about 50 percent of today's
jobs. So we must reinvent half of the economy and we have perhaps only 20 years
for this. Global climate change will probably cause the greatest mass
extinction since the death of dinosaurs, as well as extreme weather, droughts, mass
migrations and wars. Nobody would have thought that the biggest problem is not
the finite reserves of oil and coal, but their enduring availability at low
cost. Nevertheless, there are mounting resource bottlenecks at a global level.
This concerns nitrogen, phosphorus and water, for example. Therefore, feeding
the world might become a problem. Based on an overall global average of all raw
materials, the world consumes 1.5 times the resources actually available. Thus,
there are either more than 1 billion people too many in the world, or we have
to use resources more economically. But attributing the problem just to
overpopulation would be too simple. It is the industrialized countries that
consume 3.5-4.5 times the amount of renewable resources.

What results from this?

Clearly, this will lead to
massive challenges. If we continue as before, massive waves of refugees, wars,
terrorism, and revolutions are the obvious consequences. We can no longer keep
these problems at bay; due to the strongly networked and interdependent nature
of the world, they will sooner or later come back to us like a boomerang. So we
must increasingly ensure that humane living conditions prevail everywhere.

In the past, we could ease the
stress on resources through globalization, by exploiting resources located
elsewhere in the world. The revolution in the area of information and
communication technologies (ICT) made it possible to outsource production to
low cost countries and avoid the associated environmental pollution in industrialized
countries. For a long time, that seemed like a smart move. But then China grew
to rival US hegemony, which implies the risk of dangerous military conflicts.

In the recent decades, the USA
has focused on the production of knowledge, inventions and creative products,
because that is where all value creation chains begin. To sit at the source
promises the greatest commercial gains. In order to protect the commercial
value of ideas, surveillance technologies were put in place (e.g. against Bit
Torrent downloads of music and movies). Today, these technologies are used by
many popular Internet platforms to study our intentions. They increasingly
penetrate our private spheres of life. This is claimed to happen for the sake
of a better user experience, through innovations such as personalized services.
At the same time, however, our privacy was stolen in order to get more easy
access to our money and life, or to sell it back to us expensively. If we do
not pay attention, we might soon lose our freedom and our rights.

How have these new technologies changed politics?

The new technologies have also
played into the hands of governments - including the personalized advertising that
is often used to offer free information services. States have become beneficiaries
of the total surveillance of citizens and customers by the private sector. That
is why they have done little to curb these developments so far. To justify it,
security arguments were put forward, although mass surveillance is statistically
no more successful in countering terrorism than conventional investigative
work.

Why is this the case?

Data analyses are not perfect.
They produce many false positives, resulting in lists with too many suspects.
For example, most of the Paris terrorists were on such lists. It was also known
in advance that at least one of them had radicalized, and another one was
taught to shoot at a police sports club. The problem of the Big Data approach
is that the number of suspects exceeds the number of actual terrorists by far,
making it difficult to decide who to concentrate on. In a sense, it is not
possible to see the forest for the trees. From the point of view of Big Data
analysis, one could say that everyone is a suspect. This does not only pose
legal concerns; it also does not work well.

And what happens now?

If you ask business people,
many of them will tell you that the world's problems would best be solved if
the state stopped interfering with them. The argument is that companies are
more efficient than public institutions (which, however, are supposed to
execute orders, not to be innovative). Additionally, the idea is that the most
efficient companies will prevail. Finally, a few monopolies will remain, which
use the world's resources in the most efficient way thanks to "economies
of scale". Therefore, international agreements such as TTIP and TISA
essentially seem to minimize the influence of politics and the state and to
privatize goods and services which were previously public. It is likely that public
administration will also be privatized on a large scale. There are significant
changes ahead, and that's why nobody wants to talk about this. Sadly, the
debate about chlorinated chicken distracts the public from the truly
fundamental points.

Why are politicians doing this?

These changes promise benefits
for policymakers too. They would get a kind of digital scepter, a tool to
control society and the behavior of people. Some believe that the world could
be optimized with it, but I have serious doubts that this can ever work. The deal
with the business world seems to be that harmful products would not be
forbidden (or if they were, then citizens would have to pay for lost profits).
Instead, the state would manipulate the opinions, decisions and behavior of
citizens using personalized information. This would mean a digital takeover.
For the consumer and citizen it would mean gradual disempowerment. In the end,
however, this would be bad for policymakers too. "Big nudging" is not
efficient enough to solve the global problems caused by human behavior (to
ensure healthy and environmentally friendly behavior, for example). Therefore, a
"citizen score" would sooner or later be introduced and each of our
behaviors (and our likely behaviors and those of the social contacts
influencing us) would be positively or negatively rated, such that our own
future would be increasingly determined by the state. Sooner or later, we would
end up with a form of digital totalitarianism, or data dictatorship. The
victims of this "brave new world" would be the citizens. They would
lose their freedom but would anyway have to pay for the sustainability costs
(and for lost profits in case the state decided to withdraw from certain
harmful technologies). In spite of this, the problems would not be resolved. Not
only do these costs sum up to amounts that nobody could ever pay for. We would
also be confronted with new problems and even bigger ones.

What are you talking about?

We would end up with a Feudalism
2.0, where, thanks to the use of digital technologies, resources and power would
be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. As a result, less and
less resources would be used to solve everyone's problems. The fate of all of
us would depend on the decisions of very few people. Basic principles of
justice and democracy, which were achieved over centuries, would be sacrificed.
But that is not all: the economic development would be pretty bad. Most
products would be manufactured by robots. Many services would be generated by
algorithms using artificial intelligence. There would be a huge army of
unemployed people. Purchasing power would collapse and bring the economy down.
Most companies would go bankrupt. About 40 percent of top 500 companies would
disappear in 10 years' time.

As citizens would not be
appeased with bread and games in the long run, there would be political and
social unrests, revolutions and wars. That happened already during the
transition from the agrarian to the industrial society, and later to the
service society – thus, it should be a warning to us. As a result of such
developments, many people would not only lose their jobs, but also their lives.
Cynically enough, some people view this as the solution to our problems. But this
time, it could mean the end of human civilization (due to the possible use of
ABC weapons). Even if it would not come so bad, given that we live in a
multicultural globalized world, the next conflict would not only take place
between alliances of countries. The war would be everywhere — in the middle of
our modern society. In the end something akin to the Nuremberg trials would take
place again, to bring those to justice, who were responsible for the
foreseeable disaster. It would really be wiser to take another historical path.

What alternatives do we have?

We need massive innovation. A citizen
score would be absolutely counterproductive for this. It would promote
opportunism and conformism, rather than increasing people’s readiness to take
risks and to question existing solutions — something, which is absolutely essential
now.

It is also high time to make the
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence tools currently available, such as “cognitive
computing”, accessible to all scientists or even all interested people. This
would significantly increase the capacity and speed of innovation and ensure
greater transparency and democratic control.

We also need a fundamentally new
approach to innovation that puts more emphasis on open innovation than today, in
order to offer all of the products and services that are currently not provided
by large companies. Citizen science, so-called Fablabs (public centers for communities
of digital hobbyists), as well as initiatives to mobilize civil society are
becoming increasingly important. The key word is co-creation, which means that
citizens can augment information, knowledge, services and products in a largely
open information and innovation ecosystem. Obviously, this does not preclude commercialization.
On the contrary, it would create opportunities for everyone to earn money with
data. The citizens and the customers would become partners. The participatory
society of the future will not only build on large global corporations. Businesses
of all types and sizes and self-employment will play an even bigger role than
today. This is a good thing because monopolies are known to be comparatively little
innovative, and they rarely care about products and services that will not generate
a significant return, say, of 20 percent.

What else could be done?

I spend a lot of time thinking
about the right framework for a "Plurality University", which would
generate knowledge in real time (as much as this is possible) and would share it
instantly worldwide. In the digital age, we must reinvent innovation, from
research to publication to teaching.

We also need to think more
about ways to foster the spirit of experimentation. Too many inventions are merely
modest improvements of existing ideas, so-called linear innovation, which extend
the life cycle of "old" products. Instead, we need to encourage
radically new ideas, sometimes referred to as "disruptive innovations".
In many places of the world, this will need more venture capital. The latter
could, in part, come from investment funds. Today, companies funnel
unprecedentedly high dividends to their shareholders, which means that they
could afford to invest more. Instead of paying out all surpluses as dividends, some
of this money could form part of a venture capital fund to invest in innovations.

And how do we ensure that innovations lead to more sustainable products?

Sadly, the hope that the
planet would recover from all stresses and strains by itself has not
materialized. Externalities, which refer to the external costs or benefits associated
with products, services or interactions, need to be measured and priced. Big Data
and the Internet of Things (IoT) make it increasingly possible to do this. In
fact, this is probably the only way to save liberty.

Interestingly, the measurement
and pricing of externalities would make regulation largely unnecessary.
Nowadays, however, many entrepreneurs and inventors are hampered by
over-regulation. We need to sweep this out of the way.

Finally, if we were to trade externalities such as financial derivatives, this would create entirely new financial markets.
That would unleash enormous economic potential. A multi-dimensional financial
system would also allow enirely new applications such as self-organizing socio-economic
systems, which require various incentive mechanisms. In many cases, the
application of decentralization approaches and self-organization principles
could increase the resource efficiency by 30 to 40 percent.

But how would you reduce the number of conflicts in the world?

First of all, the competition
for scarce resources needs to be mitigated. This can be achieved by the
combination of several measures. First, resources need to be used more
efficiently (see above). Second, recycling techniques need to be advanced. Third,
a quickly growing pool of data must be opened for everyone's value creation,
and the principles of the sharing economy should be applied to an increasing
number of areas of social and economic life, including how urban space is
managed and used. This would enable a higher standard of living for more people
while decreasing the consumption of resources. In order to reduce war and
terrorism, we need to pay more attention to the living conditions in the rest
of the world. This is particularly true of North Africa and the Middle East.
That would perhaps be the most effective way to protect European security
interests.

Furthermore, we must learn that,
in a multicultural society, punishment mechanisms often do not cause social
order, but rather escalation of conflict. This has been observed not only in
the Middle East, but also in Ferguson, and many other places. Therefore, we
need new mechanisms to promote coordination and cooperation in a multi-cultural
world. This is one of our recent research areas. Certain reputation mechanisms
are promising in this regard, but also qualification, competition,
communication and matching mechanisms.

Last but not least, engaging
in a "Cultural Genome Project" could achieve a better understanding of
the success principles, on which different cultures are built. This would allow
us to combine them in innovative ways and enable us to generate new social and
economic value. The greatest potential of this approach lies directly on
today's cultural fault lines. By the way, we will also build some of these cultural
success mechanisms into the Nervousnet platform, so that our "data for
all" approach will lead to responsible use.

Wouldn't the Nervousnet platform make people’s lives even more transparent
than today?

No, because we take informational
self-determination seriously. The data storage is decentralized and we use
procedures to anonymize, encrypt and "forget" data. Each user will be
able to decide for themselves which data they want to produce or share. Imagine
that all the data you generate is sent to a personal data store, where it can
be sorted and managed by category. Given appropriate legal regulations, you
would then be able decide what kind of data to share with whom, and for what
purpose. Thus, more trusted companies would have access to more data. This
would stimulate competition for trust, and the data-driven society would be
built on trust again.

All of this sounds exciting, but do you really believe your ideas will ever
be implemented?

Yes, I think so, for two
reasons. First of all, because we are forced to be much more innovative than
today. Second, because it would bring great benefits to everyone to implement
these proposals. I am just not sure whether it will take a societal catastrophe
— the ultimate failure of the totalitarian and feudal approach — to change our
current way of thinking. In the worst case, this would mean a kind of
Armageddon. However, I think we should be clever enough to avoid this. Luckily,
there are also encouraging signs.

What are they?

The USA have started to invest
in a new strategy. They are betting on a combination of reindustrialization on
the one hand, and citizen science and combinatorial innovation on the other.
Even Google has embarked on a new strategy with the founding of Alphabet, which
aims to make the company less dependent on personalized advertising. And Apple
has recognized the value of privacy as a competitive advantage. As always, the
United States is faster! I admire the will and ability of the United States to
always be at least one step ahead.

People increasingly understand
that the digital economy is not a zero-sum game. In the area of the Internet of
Things, Google has engaged in open innovation, and it recently made its Tensorflow
Artificial Intelligence software open source. Tesla Motors has opened up many
of its patents, and many billionaires have recently promised to donate large
sums of money for good. So, we see many signs of change. The benefit of open
information exchange is becoming increasingly evident. Sharing information
often increases the value of information, inventions, and companies. If properly
organized, the digital economy provides almost unlimited possibilities because
intangible goods can be reproduced as often as we like. In fact, more and more
money will be earned in virtual worlds. This relates not just to computer games;
Bitcoin has even shown that bits can be transformed into gold. Almost nobody
believed that this were possible.

So, the only question is when Europe will finally
make use of the fantastic opportunities afforded by the digital revolution. We are
entering a digital age that increasingly frees itself of material limitations.
I find this absolutely fascinating!

FuturICT Hubs

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FET Flagship Initiative

The activities leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 284709 - project 'FuturICT', a Coordination and Support Action in the Information and Communication Technologies activity area